Tess returns to the restaurant after hours and discovers what everyone does when the guests leave. Afterward, she hits Home Bar and sees another side to the people she works with. Here’s our recap of “Now Your Tongue Is Coded”!
If last week’s premiere was all about feeling out the restaurant, this one is feeling out the people Tess works with outside the fast-paced dining area.
After a hectic night of being ordered around and doing everything. I felt just as lost as she was.
Will tells her to bus her dishes and clock out. As she’s doing this, she gets caught sniffing a piece of food by Howard.
He tells her to not eat the garbage or at least do it in private or quickly. Tess tells him that she loves the flowers that his wife places in the restaurant, but he tells her that she’s going to feel bad when he explains, but he doesn’t want her to. His wife has passed away, but since she loved orchads, they are always in the restaurant. Then he brings her over and lets her try some good food.
That awkward moment ends, and Tess stumbles upon Jake and Simone in the locker room area. They’re in a bit of an argument about going somewhere, so she hastily leaves, and in the process drops her bag and belongings everywhere. On her way home, she stops by a food truck for dinner, and realizes the she lost her wallet. She goes back to the restaurant and finds out what shift drinks are…
After a busy night, Howard lets the staff have some drinks from the bar to wind down. It turns out this is just the pregame, though, because after, most of them head to Home Bar to continue the party.
During shift drinks, though, Tess has a very interesting encounter with Simone. They’re drinking riesling and Simone asks her what she tastes. In a way, Tess is a little sarcastic and asks if she’s talking about the region or the grape, but Simone asks her about the flavor.
What follows is a lesson in the areas of the tongue and our palettes.
Howard interrupts, asking if Simone can come in early the next while he’s at a meeting, and then she asks if she can walk home with him. Tess is about to head home, too, but Sasha rushes back in and tells the “baby monster” that she’s coming with him.
She makes it to Home Bar, and Sasha gets her inside even though she still doesn’t have her wallet. Tess makes some missteps when it comes to Sasha through the night, first back at the restaurant, when she asks if he’s drinking vodka, and then at the bar, when she’s surprised to learn he knows Spanish.
“I know everything.”
Sasha motives aren’t pure, though. He wants Tess to approach a woman across the bar so he can get information about where his wife is. Yes, Sasha has a “green card wife” who has disappeared on him.
As Tess starts toward this woman who might know Ginger, Sasha’s wife, she’s cut off by Jake. He asks what she’s doing there, and buys her a drink. She sips it and comments that it’s bitter, alluding to the earlier comment from Simone that bitter is poison…so, yeah, whatever relationship she has with Jake will end up being toxic.
Jake says that Simone has already gotten to her, and when Tess asks if they’re together, he lets her know that they’re not. In fact, the grew up in Cape Cod together. That’s how they’re friends.
Sasha cuts off anymore conversation to put her back on the path to talk to this other woman. Tess gets to her and makes an awkward intro then says, “Uncle Mark…he says hi.” This woman stands to her full height and slaps the every loving hell out of Tess. This was all a diversion for Sasha to get her phone and Ginger’s number.
Ari takes Tess to the bathroom and tries to clean up her lip…by dabbing it with cocaine. Then she kisses Tess. Apparently, she can’t tell if she was going to be into it until she attempted the kiss. Then she give Tess a bump of coke. Sasha appears and explains his diversion. Tess slaps at him and tells him that she would have done it anyway, and that he shouldn’t have lied to her.
Once things have calmed down, everyone is sitting around a table, talking, and Tess shares that she really likes the song playing, which leads into a really sad story about her childhood. Her dad didn’t celebrate birthdays, but she wanted to. She invited John Lennon to her sixth birthday, but this was obviously after Lennon’s death, and she didn’t have a stamp, so she left it outside and prayed that God would deliver the invite to him.
He didn’t, and that’s why she doesn’t believe in God.
Jake gets up from the table after the story and walks away. Tess looks after him, but doesn’t follow. Once it’s time to leave, she realizes that she still doesn’t have her wallet, and they’ve left her with the tab.
Luckily, another new guy pays the tab for her. As she’s leaving the bar, she sees Jake making up with a woman in a darkened hallway. She stares for several seconds then shakes her head and leaves.
Tess goes back by the food truck, and she drunkenly explains she still hasn’t found her wallet, but he gives her food anyway. She eats it as she walks to her home in Brooklyn. She’s made it a good way across the bridge when she throws up all over the place.
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Next week, it looks like Tess may hook up with Will? I don’t know, but I’m sort of wanting her to stay away from Jake, especially after the bitter reference. That just won’t end well.
What are your thoughts?
Sweetbitter airs Sundays on STARZ at 8/7c.